'' "'!

i
:
,,,111 1 11l ll ll>\!ll''''"''""'''''""""''"''''"'"'""'' '"'i' ' '''"""'''" l"'' "'''"''" "'' ''''"'!J' '
,. - ,; : ; , ,: : .i t ' -
t
' j:. : DR. ALEXANDER G.ODE
: '. .
' . : ' :, "' 1 '" "' ; , ,.,', '',,,, , , ' ' '' '' '' '' ' " "' c'' ' . '' ' .'' ''' "" ''' ".' . '' ' "''' ""'''; "'' ,. "' l'' ,, ' ,, "' . '
..
FIVE THESES TO HAMMER ON THE GATES OF BABEL
1. The concept of one language for all mankind contains a powerful
mythological element. It is as$Ociated with the "Golden Age
11
, both in the
sense of a past State of Innocence as also Future
Like all mythological comcepts, it has evolved with man's longingS',-
his outer and inner needs, his patterns and principles of thought. As
formulated in most current discussions, the concept of a universal lan-
guage reflects the rationalistic optimism of the Eighteenth Century and
is the product of the posi tivistic fai th in orderl'y progress which in-
spired the natural sciences during the second half of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury but which today survives only in p'opular misconception.
I may clarify these assertions by referring briefly to the Tower of
Babel and the Confusion of Tongues . . on that memorable day
was -- in conventionally rationalistic terms -- that God (unaware of the
most elementary principles of modern pedagogy) vented his wrath on his
hapless creatures by playing on them a dirty trick or practical j oke.
When they came.to they found that some of them spoke French, others Yid-
dish, others Ojibway, , and so f orth. And we are still busy trying to undo
the senseless damage He The adoption of .a universal man-made lan-
guage be , the neatest couriter trick.
There is another way of reading the Babel story. What happened -- in
terms of this other view -- was that the builders beca.::ne so engrossed in
their respective portions of the that after a while they found i t
impossible to think, and hence to speak, of what went on around them in
my but in the concepts of their craft. did not suddenly begin to
talk French and Yiddish and Ojibway but and Carpenterese,
Pipefi tterese, and so f orth. This way o:f the Babel story --whi'ch
by the way is not original with me but cited unaltered from Dante -- is
eminently compatible wi th our contempdrary understanding of the phen c:ime-
non language and its niultiplicity of forms. We krlOW again -- as Dante __ did -
that the basic diff erences between languages are . diff erences in concep--.. -
tual patterns and not in wor,d forms . .
The endeavor to undo the i
1
curse" of Babel -- as such endeavor is com-
patible wi th Dante' s view --- is concerned wi th a metaphysical and reli-
gious objective: To bring about -- in preparatj_on the end. of Time ---
the ultimate (and original) harmony of human thOught, regardless of what
individual brain may serve as i ts . cul ture broth. To _rejace this meta-
hysical objective by the physical one f striving Lto. J.)rovide. all mankind
'th a common medium of commuriicatibn is to practice . what Reinhold Niebuhr
called "the strategy of f leeing froin .dif.:ti.cul t problems by . taking refuge
impossible solutions.
11


""""" 'l """ 111 ' ''" 110 10" 1 '" '" ' "' 1' " 1' " ' ' ' """" 1' ' "'" " " '' '"" H I ' ll l " ' '" ' " '' 1'' '' ' 1' ' "'"'" t' ' "' .' ,',, ;, ''
11
' ' ' -'' .'' ' '" ""''' ,., ''' ""-" ' '"' :, ' " '" ' ' ''
1
'
11
''" ' '
1
" ''"
1
" " '" ''" '"" """ '" " "'"
1
'"' ' " ' '
itor's Nte: Dr. Alexander Gode is head,o{ the. Interlingua Division of
ience Service, the author of Int,e37liI1gua: and President oi' tlie.
anslators Association.
I hold that the concept of one language f or all mankind -- as com-
monly defined -- is a misconception and at best an interesting museum
piece, useful as an exhibit to exemplify a certain kind of intellectual
aberation in which our f athers and grandf athers got involved by reason o
their enthusiastic endorsement of rationalistic positivism.
. '.
. . .
2. There can be no doubt but that it is possible to devise
cially an efficient .system of. interhuman verbal a
ter of fact, i t "is possib.le to devise h:t,mdreds of such. Pig Latin and
Esperanto are exa:mp1.es. I mean to imply that i t is nonsense to argue
against Esperanto by' calling it inefficient, impractical, or ugly. No
language is ugly, except Sax9n dialect spoken . in the vicinity. ?f
Leipzig (which uncalled.:...for..:.rema.rk I inser.t at this point only to illus-
trate how naive and subjec't .ive1y-prejudic.ed are all verdicts of ugly and
beautiful when it comes to. 1Ii.atters of. language). To . call Esperanto im-
practical is hardly les$ naiy_e than to call it ugly. The man who said,
"You can translate .everything
1
into Esperanto, but there is nothing you
can express in i t "., was .trying-_ to carry the day by a wi tticism, f or the
facts would not help him. These are the simple facts: There is available
a substantial -- both reporting and creative -- in
Esperanto. Furthermore there ,is . more than __ ample evidence that people c
not only in they cari make love in i t and get married
in it. -
When, a moment ago, I . coupl.ed Esperanto with Pig Latin I did not do
so because I regard Pig Latin. as contemptible. I don't. I take it very
seriously, f or i ts existence is at least as interesting as the existence
E>f Shriners; Kiwanis, Lions, Moose, and Elks from the point of view of
anyone interested in the psychology of the' human delight with secret
societies.
: r;,
Here o:r course; my Esperanto friends rebel and give me a wonderful
chance to At this po;int in my argument I am often told,
Yes, i t is true that Esperanto is at a "language f the chosen ",
There are those who know it and _those who . don't.But the point is pre-
cisely, I am told, that the . kno"wers (who k:now that they are in the know
and who occasionally cannot res.ist the temptation of looking down. upon
their less enJ_ightened brethren)_' . do not want to be or remain the mem-
bers of a secret society. The point is precisely that they ardently be-
lieve and hope that the day _" will come when Esperanto is taught as a sec
ond in all schools all over the. world, wi th a shrinking body of
non-knowers on hand to remind us that the job is not finished
(Just as today the remaining i,lliterates throughout the world remind us
of an unfinished educational _job.) ..
All right then, i _f other i.i:iversal . aux:iliary-language
proposals do not wish but are_ _-forced . at t"his time to play the apparent
role. of ties o".f.' ini ti"ates, how can this
trad1 tional si tuation be eJq?ecte_d to change There is b.ut one answer:
By by the decision> o'f :world bf . authorized representati ves
by the wise benevolence of a wo:tld dictator. . -'
'.I ,,
. But I ho+d in the realm of the intellect and the spirit --
where language has its roots -:---: theJ;'.e _ cart ,_be no .P.lanning, by .decree.- The
e?onomy of of . t _";i.s . f"ree-ma,rket economy ." where plan
ning can. guide and direct but -never compel. . , .. . .
. 3. k th..e.
11
;intiernational language" or "interlan-
;a;ge" .language in '.Use1 in international communications. I
rnppo.e tthe_r-: or .no lflll.gu:ages that do not on occasion answer this
lefini tion. There doubtless is none that answers i t more often and more
!Xtensively than English. In any event, it looks a bit funny when Esperan-
;o or;! .:for._j;hat matter, Interlingua -- or any other constructed or Planned
fnguage _;,-_ :fs placed next to English wi tri tlie_. ' claim that i t is fit to
:rowd out English and destined to do so. The image which comes t-o mind is
iot that of David and Goliath but that of the frog trying to blow himself
ip to the size of an ox. : .. ;"'.
''
There are many -- and not only native speakers of English -- who, by
from past progress, predict that English will sooner or
Later . be- the common primary or secondary language for mankind. If this
assumes that a world congress of plenipotentiaries will some
iay decree . that every human being -- whatever else he may wish to study
in the language field -- must learn English, it is on a par in merit and
soundness wi th the prediction that Volapk will some fine day be selected
as the universal language of Te'rra. If it assumes that the language of the
Age of the future must be English because only English is compati-
ble with the concept of the Golden Age, we may smile and pass _on . But
there remains the possibility that the prediction of a functionally iw-
portant and even glorious future f or English is based on the assumption
that En.glish will continue <t;6 have what i t takes to compete and excel in
, he free-market economy f J..nternational communication. And this makes
ense. This view I share. But I hasten to emphasize that there is no ex-
clusivi ty in this claim. It does not assign to English the role of the
language but of one. In other words, the prediction envis-
o revolutionary change but only more and more of what we already
1_
I hold that English may be expected to continue to play an outstand-
11g .in .. eolnm'unication and that there is nothing in
either the language.- as such or in. the world si tuation to le:rid support to
the notion that English might usurp a position of mon,opolistic power.
.
: . ' : . : .. : .
.!. ,. :
4. If the world has shrunk, with contacts between nations having be-
come more direct and intense, the immediate cause must. be seen =i:-n the
l_oyvering . of science and technology since the renaissance and in partic-
lar throughout the past one hundred or one hundred and fifty years.
ince science and technology take pride in being concerned with facts, not
atti tudes. i t takes some probing to recognize that :i.t ii;:; no accident that
odern technology did : not arise from an Asian or African cul-
tural continui ty but from the tradi tion of occidental individualism. This
fact is of gr.eat linguistic significance. It nieans that . the lan-
age of science -- no matter how i t evolved, no matter how. transvested .
m qiverse linguistic garments -- is basically and qrigfnal1y
, !. . .... { . .. ;
. 1 '
However, to emphasize the occidental origins of the sciences -- ex
ccidente scientiae -- cannot mislead us to the absurd claim that the
ciences are an occidental preroga.ti ve. On the ve
actualism _of science and technology has grafted them w-i -tn :a.mazi'l'lg : :speed
d ease into the most diverse cultural continuities in all parts of the
orld. Hence the event that contributi.ons. to further advances in all the
of science and technoiogy are being made in the ever increasing
umber of language s.
We shall have to cope wi th thi-s situ:ci.t:f'on' which is not just a matter
f prediction, for it is at hand. We shall cope wi.th it in the dynamics
f a free market. We shall have to do more language learning, and not only
more, Yi_e sha).!l hav:e :to make i t mre diverse. There have to be
- JilOre, too much more for- machines to _handle wi th
ou]1 ttre_ heJp 9f " increasing numbers of specialized and expert human
tl:'ansl.p,t9r.s. c;:
. But .. I hold : t':b.a.t in all anticipated evol tuion of the language of
sctence its ccideiifal linguistic s_ubstratum is bound to remain essential
and vital. - --
5. With or without Whorf it is possible to regard the occidental
-- sub specie latinitatis -- as variants of a common norm. This
has 1ed to the concept of a "bridge language". Take any group of closely
related languages you can -- without undue artifice or violence --
reduce them to a colDlilon norm in which a message can be transmi tted qui te
eff ectively to speakers of each and every one of the contributing lan-
guages without prior initiation. Interlingua is a pan-occidental bridge
langunge. In it messages can, be transmitted with adequate effectiveness
to those who by accident or birth or by choice of education know well (or
fairly well ) one of the major languages in the Latin orbit.
- I hold that this assigns to Interlingua a useful function in scien-
tific communication anywhere in the world. Once and for all, it is no
candidate '- for the role -- glorious or inglorious -- of one cominon language
mank:ind. It is no substitute _forlanguage -learning and no compet-
itor of It is a bridge.1C1figuage tobe used in addressing a
heteropolyglot audience or readership.
* * * * * *
'.
The _Interlingua Division of Science St.!'Vice - as the name implies
was set up to utilize Interlingua in the service of science in matters
of international communication.
- -- areas_ in which the werk of the Division is of recognized useful-
ness t -- ttie- ind.ividual scientist are primarily the following:.
(1) Provision fute:rlingua Summaries or Abstracts appended to arti
cl,es in specialized journals of international research significance
. _(2)Provision of Interlingua versions of Progra.m Notes or Proceedings
of congresses. -. _ - .
EC!-i tors. and who to study the possibili ty of .utilizing .
in their work are invited to address the'ir . comriiun:lcatlons to:
, - . ' '
Interlingua Division -of Science Service :
Alexander Gode, C.hie.f :...-- --
80 East llth Street
. .. i :.: .
; ,
New York 3, N. Y ' ; -
U.S.A . -
' .-.
. . . "
. . .i . :. ;_,,
' .. :. ''
. ! . . . 1
. .: . _;, ' 1 ;
. . :.i.: .
..... - .: ...